2a : Episode Six : Cats
by Taidine
Summary: For the edification and entertainment of the students, Kadic has book the Traveling Museum : Cats exhibit.  Our heroes see where this is going, and I'm sure we do too.  Part of an alternate lateseasontwo story arc.
1. Chapter 1 : Opening Number

**Episode Six : Cats**

Soundtrack: Barenakedladies' "It's All Been Done" (Yumi. Ulrich. It's perfect.)

_Since I don't feel an overwhelming need to comment on this episode, I'll take the opportunity to respond to some reviews from episode five._

_Mirawriter: Thanks. I do my best :) ._

_Millenium'sPharoah: You're pretty much right. In the show, Jeremie goes into Lyoko a grand total of two times, and one time I don't think he even gets all the way there. The show never revealed how he looks in Lyoko, although Odd apparently found it amusing. This was why I wanted to get him into Lyoko. The in-story reasons for his going is as a favor to Aelita; I skirted around the problem of coming up with Jeremie's Lyoko appearance by having him use Aelita's 'template' – a concept I don't think exists in the show, but the idea I had was that if you have someone's character information saved, you can ask the computer to virtualize someone else using the same information. Okay, before I babble any further, the concise answer –Yes, this was a departure from cannon._

_AussieUlrich – I'm continuing, I'm continuing!_

_But, right on the heels of that statement: after Episode Six concludes, I will be going on a three-week hiatus. Season 2a will resume with Episode Seven in early August._

Chapter One: Opening Number

Rain pounded on the windows of the science classroom of Kadic Junior High. The white noise of the rain seemed to have a soporific effect on the students: one boy with a patch of purple in his upswept blonde was reclining in his chair, head back, eyes closed; a pink-haired girl was staring abstractedly at a diagram of a food web tacked up in one corner; and another girl with a broad yellow headband and a serious makeup overload doodled aimless spirals in her notebook. Only one student, in fact, seemed to be paying any attention at all, a badly dressed boy with dorky glasses and blonde hair. His name is Jeremie, and he currently holds the Kadic records for both highest average and longest-maintained 99 or above. While his friends chalk this up to genetics, he does have to work for it. Natural genius is just an added bonus, i.e. the last ten points in a hundred.

"To open our unit on life science," the grey-haired teacher said over the sound of the rain, "the Traveling Museum has brought its Cats exhibit to our school. Cats belong to the feline family, order carnivoria, class mammalia, phylum chordata, and kingdom animalia. To remember these classifications…" Her desultory class had taken about a page worth of notes between them, not counting Jeremie, all period. "…binomial nomenclature, so the house cat would be…" The bell rang shrilly. Suddenly energized, the class pounded for the door.

There were four exceptions. The boy with the gravity-defying hair was still dozing. The pink-haired girl was carefully packing her bag. A rather grim looking, brown-haired boy loitered by the door, and Jeremie strolled up front to have a word with the teacher. "Uh… Ms. Hertz? What kind of exhibits did the museum bring?"

Ms. Hertz was erasing 'King Philip Comes Over From Glasgow, Scotland' from the board with some vigor. "I believe they have several preserved specimens of great cats, and – Jeremie, you look pale. Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

"No…" said the boy quickly. He did look a little pale. "Just… uh… need some lunch."

So saying, he hurried out. The three students remaining in the room followed.

A tall, black clad girl joined them in the otherwise empty hallway. "Jeremie, did you hear about the-"

"Traveling museum," he cut in, "yeah."

The boy with the spiky hair looked both ways to ascertain they were alone in the hallway, then squeaked indignantly: "Preserved specimens! Here! Just hang up a sign that says, 'XANA, Posses These.' It would save some trouble."

"Calm down, Odd," growled the serious-looking boy. "XANA's not _that _predictable."

"Actually, since it's a computer program, it's theoretically possible to…" Jeremie put in.

Odd cut him off. "Come on. You think he's going to pass up something like this?"

"Shhh!" The girl in black protested, "Someone's coming." A knot of students chattered past, heading for the cafeteria. "So," she continued in a forced-cheerful voice, "Dance this weekend."

"I thought you didn't read the paper," the brown-haired boy said skeptically.

"I don't," the girl agreed. The group of five merged seamlessly into the cafeteria bound stream. "William asked me… um… to go with him…"

"Oh, _Ulrich, dear!_" interrupted a shrill voice with its usual impeccable timing. Parting the crowd like the red sea, a girl in pink swept down the hallway, trailing a pair of disgruntled cronies. She had the latest issue of the Kadic Herald in one hand, folded open to the Events page. "Dance this week," she purred, insinuating herself between the girl who had been talking and the brown-haired boy, who was looking hurt. "You _will _be coming with _me_, won't you?"

Ulrich shot a cutting glance at the black-clothed girl who had been pushed away from him, mouthed _William? _Withan accusatory expression, and after a pause, during which she shook her head quizzically, answered, "I'll think about it, Sissi."

She planted a finger on his chest. "I can't wait forever, you know. But I'll give you a chance, all right?" With a cat-in-the-creamery smile, she moved back into the crowd.

The girl Sissi had displaced stared at Ulrich, aghast. "What?" He growled belligerently.

"I'm going home for lunch," she announced, and stamped off into the crowd.

Ulrich glared after her, defiant. His remaining three friends had turned the full force of their attention on him.

"What?" He repeated defensively, then, "if Yumi's going to hang around with William…"

"But you don't even like Sissi," his spiky-haired friend pointed out.

Ulrich snorted and began to walk again.

"I don't think I understand Ulrich," the pink-haired girl observed.

"Join the club, Aelita," piped the boy with the gravity-defying hair, "but then," he added melodramatically, "who are we to judge in matters of love?"

"It's not love we have to worry about," practical Jeremie put in. "How can we expect to save the world if we can't even stay together?"

The other boy drew breath for a witty retort, then thought better of it. "Let's hope that works out then. Can we get some food now? I'm _starving._"

"I thought you were Odd," pink-haired Aelita quipped weakly.

"Well done, young Padawan," he responded, and they were off.

- - - -

Outside, the rain drummed on the canvas tops of a pair of tents hastily erected on the school green. Under one, a pair of workmen wearing 'Traveling Museum: CATS' buttons pinned to their shirts sat on the hood of a gutted trailer, sipping coffee and taking bets on how long it would be before the kids came in. Under the other, a woman with the same pin was putting the finishing touches on the exhibit itself. A long table holding brochures, several feline skulls, a brindled cougar pelt, and a paw print cast in plaster was stretched out in front of her; she was setting up a diminutive model of a prehistoric feline skeleton. Behind her, three glass cubes with painted backgrounds held the usual museum dioramas: a housecat, grey tabby, frozen as it leapt after a sparrow; a lynx, set in a crouching position on a pile of rocks; and a pair of stuffed lions lazing in faux grass. A bird in the lion's display had fallen to the floor at some point during the travel, but they weren't allowed to open the exhibits until they got back to the museum, so there it would stay.

"Hey, Lou!" The girl called over the static of the rain, "drag an extension cord over here for the _felus _model!"

One of the workmen dropped off the hood of the truck and moseyed around to the back, from which he eventually produced an orange extension cord. "Yes, Ma'am," he said, uncoiling it and ducking between the two tents. "Your wish is my – ow!" The cord dropped to the ground.

"What?" Asked the girl, emerging from behind her table.

Lou picked up the cable. A wisp of black escaped it, but that might have been his imagination. "Shocked me. Must be the damp or something, I dunno. Here."

She accepted the cord and plugged in the cable she was holding. The _Felus _skeleton began to tread air in a mechanical fashion.

Behind the table, one of the stuffed lions twitched his tail lazily in a fashion that wasn't mechanical at all.

- - - -

Odd finished Jeremie's lunch. His own was long gone, white foam tray consigned to the garbage can. He didn't seem to care about the texture, taste, content, or composition of the food, all of which were dubious at Kadic. This was a good thing – otherwise, what would all his friends do with their obligatory slices of pizza?

Actually, today's lunch crowd consisted of Odd, Jeremie, and Aelita, so 'all' didn't come into it much. Yumi was at home, and Ulrich had vanished to sulk. The remaining three sat at one of the long, white cafeteria tables, wearing rather glum expressions, as was typical when their members had a spat. As Odd put it – "It's _always_ some stupid misunderstanding. You would think they'd have figured that out by now." Yumi and Ulrich, it had been unanimously decided, were too alike for their own good.

Aelita took her mostly-empty lunch tray cautiously to the garbage can, then returned to the group, resting her hands on the tabletop and leaning over. "Well, I think we should go see the cats. I haven't been around a lot of animals on Earth."

"Yeah," Odd agreed caustically, "And when XANA attacks, we'll be right there to see the action."

"Calm down, Odd," Jeremie urged, standing up and snagging his laptop. "We have to go for science anyway. If XANA launches an attack, we'll just-"

_Beep, beep, beep, _chirruped his laptop.

Jeremie balanced the computer on one hand and opened it with the other. His glasses reflected twin images of the tall, red-wreathed shaft displayed on the screen. "Active Tower in the mountain sector," he sigh, "One thing you can say for XANA – it doesn't waste time."

Odd dumped his lunch tray and peered at the computer. "That he doesn't. Let's get this show on the road."

Jeremie folded his laptop. Seconds later, the three burst free of the cafeteria. The lawn outside, where two tents had been set up, was filled with irritated people. They were more interested in the three smashed diorama cases, now _sans_ lions, lynx, or housecat, then a trio of running students. But someone saw Jeremie, Aelita, and Odd leave for the Factory. And someone followed.


	2. Chapter 2 : Callback

**Episode Six : Cats**

Soundtrack: Barenakedladies' "It's All Been Done" (Yumi. Ulrich. It's perfect.)

_Free pudding inspired by Order of the Stick, an excellent comic anyone who plays Dungeons and Dragons should read. _

_Taidine_

Chapter Two: Callback

Out past the school in the other direction, a puddle of well-manicured trees attempted to isolate the Kadic campus from the outside world. This part of the school was more popular in warmer weather. Due to today's chill, pattering rain, only one student was slouching through the garden, a brown-haired boy with an even grimmer expression then usual.

Ulrich wasn't happy. Dances were always bad news, and this one was no exception. He didn't _want _to go with Sissi. The girl was loud and annoying, and she talked too much. She was probably a lousy dancer, too. But if Yumi was going with William – _what could possibly have driven Yumi to go with William?_ _Does she hate me that much?_ She and Ulrich were fellow warriors! William was just a jock who looked good in black. Ulrich had saved Yumi's life, more than once!

Maybe she was tired of being the damsel in distress?

That was ridiculous. Yumi had saved Ulrich's life, too. Thick eyebrows drawn down, the boy kicked a pile of damp leaves. Nothing made sense. He should go talk to her.

With this determined thought, Ulrich looked up, located the school gates as a landmark, and strode purposefully towards them. He had scarcely taken two steps before he was struck by the unshakable sensation of being watched.

A pair of glassy yellow eyes glinted in the sparse undergrowth.

Ulrich pivoted three-sixty on one foot, seeking his unseen observer. There was no noise to be heard above the patter of the rain, but there was a flicker of movement, a twitch in the leaves. The boy caught it, oriented himself on it, and began to back away slowly. There had been wolves in these woods before.

The tense silence was suddenly, jarringly split by the loud, electronic jangle of Ulrich's cell-phone ring. Then everything happened at once.

The undergrowth erupted with a large, tawny, tuft-eared feline, hurtling towards Ulrich – all muscle and teeth and outstretched claw. Ulrich threw himself backwards, falling into a clumsy roll to avoid the pounce, and ducked behind a tree. The phone rang again, but he was already on his feet, accelerating into the woods with breakneck speed. The phone rang a third time. The feline took a moment to steady itself and set off in pursuit.

A stand of trees loomed ahead, five trunks clustered close together like tall figures huddled around a campfire. Ulrich dove into the center of the cluster and flipped his phone open, just in time to stifle the final ring. "Hello?" He whispered.

"Ulrich," said Jeremie's voice, a little breathless, "We need you at the Factory!"

A head with twitching, tufted ears poked out into the path Ulrich had been following. "Jeremie," Ulrich whispered, "hang up, then call me back." The feline's ears swiveled in his direction. Without waiting for Jeremie's reply, Ulrich flipped his cell shut and flung it as far as he could away from himself.

As it landed, the great cat turned its head towards that small sound. Ulrich held his breath, waiting.

The cell phone rang.

With a growl, the feline plunged off towards the noise, leaving a ripple of greenery in its wake. Ulrich gave it until the count of five, slowly, before abandoning his hiding place for a mad dash towards the school gates. This was clearly an attack by XANA; Yumi would need his help.

And he could ask her about William, too.

- - - -

Jeremie hauled back the hatch covering the sewer entrance. "XANA must have possessed the cats. Does anyone know the species at the exhibit?"

He didn't expect a response. "Two lions, a Spanish lynx, and a house cat," replied a shrill voice.

Jeremie dropped the manhole cover. "_No_…"

Aelita lowered herself into the hole. Odd glanced back over his shoulder and corrected, in a resigned tone, "Yes."

Sissi, flanked by her usual cronies, was standing casually against a tree along the outer edge of the clearing. Her hair was damp from the rain, and a day-glow orange poncho hung around her shoulders to shelter her clothes. "Saw you three running somewhere and I thought I'd invite myself along," she squeaked, examining her fingernails.

Jeremie began climbing down the ladder with a sour glance and a head-jerk at Odd that was supposed to say 'get rid of her.' Odd only caught the tail end of the gesture and interpreted it as 'deal with her' – a subtly different concept that set a few rusty wheels spinning in his head. Yumi and Ulrich would probably take a while to get here…

"Sissi, just go back to school," he began, "You have no idea what you're getting into."

Her look said 'I know perfectly well what I'm getting into, thank you very much,' which was of course impossible, so Odd charged on. "You _should _go back to school. This might be dangerous. I mean, we have to meet up with Ulrich and…"

That was enough. "Hmph," Sissi interjected, nose in the air. After a moment, she glanced backwards at her two cronies. "Hear that, you two? You should get back to the school. It might be dangerous."

"Uh… Sissi…" Herve protested, but she silenced him with a hand flip and headed for the hatch.

Odd let her get about halfway down the ladder before lowering himself in, and he managed to hold back his triumphant grin until he had dragged the cover shut, shrouding the tube in darkness.

- - - -

Yumi pelted along the well-manicured street that cut through her neighborhood. A neat row of houses gave way to trees as she hit a park; almost there, now. Her face was set in a pale, grim mask, lips tight and slender brows nearly meeting between her eyes. Black hair streamed behind her in a solid sheet, slightly damp from the rain, but drying now that it had slacked off. Her feet beat on the ground asynchronously, an irregular counterpoint to her quick, gasping breath, and her arms swung in rhythm to her pumping legs. The school gates, tall and wrought iron, loomed ahead, hanging invitingly open. Really almost there, now.

She cut left, breezing through the gap between the gates. On school ground now, and starting to run out of wind, she let her pace drop to an easy lope, focused straight ahead.

Her peripheral vision caught a flicker of motion. She wasted a second whipping her head around and had no time to duck when a figure came flying out of the bushes, ramming into her shoulder and sending them both tumbling to the ground. Yumi twisted and managed to end up pinning her attacker, who grinned up at her ruefully. "Hey, Yumi," Ulrich gasped, spots of color blooming in his cheeks.

Yumi grimaced at her own blush. "Ulrich, what are you-"

"Move!" The boy shouted, shoving his friend to one side. Yumi rolled with him. A furred, tawny creature landed on the patch of ground she had just vacated. She lashed out with one foot; it should have connected, but the feline twisted away with inhuman speed, grabbing her ankle in its jaws.

Ulrich bounded to his feet, snatching a long, straight stick from the ground. Wielding it two-handed, he brought it down on the feline's head. Growling, it released Yumi's ankle. A damp patch of blood and slaver spread across one pant-leg, but nothing was broken; the indefatigable Yumi launched another frenzied attack while the tuft-eared animal was distracted. Under this dual onslaught, in fell back, wary. Ulrich grabbed Yumi's arm, and the two took off.

The trees opened, revealing the school green. A long, low cafeteria beckoned to the right, but the two white tents set up outside of it still had crowds of students under them, drawn by human nature to the scene of the disaster. Three smashed display cases could be glimpsed through the mob. "We have to get them inside," Ulrich growled. Yumi nodded, and the pair plunged into the crowd.

"Dangerous animals loose!" Ulrich shouted, "Move to the cafeteria!"

The crowd perked up, but didn't stir. Ulrich elbowed his way between two teachers, shouting. "Wait," Yumi interrupted, "this isn't going to work. What would Odd do?"

At the edge of the woods, a pair of golden eyes glinted in the greenery. For a bare second, they flickered, pupils replaced by a weird symbol of concentric circles. Then a tawny, tuft-eared shape slipped from between the trees, yawning deliberately to show off long, ivory teeth.

Ulrich thought over Yumi's admonishment for a second, then bellowed: "Free pudding in the cafeteria!"

To his vast astonishment, the crowd began to move – but it wasn't the siren call of pudding that drove them. Someone had spotted the feline, which suddenly bounded forward towards the agitated crowd, tipping them over the edge into chaos.

"Cafeteria! Get to the cafeteria!" Ulrich shouted after them. The crowd obeyed, finally, flowing towards the windowed building with the tawny animal nipping at their heels. Yumi and Ulrich fell back, chaperoning the crowd; the feline was almost helpful with its menacing motions around the edge of the crowd.

"Does that cat seem to…" Ulrich began.

"It's herding us," Yumi replied flatly. For a second, the feline cut between her and the crowd, but they had reached the cafeteria now. She leapt up, narrowly evading a snap of shining teeth, to land on the other side. In a single synchronized motion, she and Ulrich slammed the doors of the cafeteria shut.

"Why would it _want _us in the cafeteria?" Ulrich demanded.

Yumi shrugged and began to walk the perimeter of the room. Ulrich followed, looking stormy and concerned. The mob of students spread out like molecules of a gas transferred to a larger container, automatically filling the available space. They were still agitated, but at least not panicking.

The door to the kitchen was hanging ajar. Curious, the warriors vaulted over the serving counter and edged in.

Past the kitchen was a storage room, boxes full of meals that hardly deserved the name stacked in irregular piles against the walls. It was silent – not the silence of emptiness, but the silence of someone not making a sound.

Or some_thing._

"Shut the door!" Yumi shouted. A pair of blunt, tawny shapes bounded out from behind a precarious stack of boxes. The larger had a golden brown mane, while the smaller was sleek and lithe: these Ulrich could identify. They were lions, and not the friendly, anthropomorphized Disney sort.

He didn't think. There were people out there in danger. With a spin and a kick, he slammed the storage-room door, leaving himself and Yumi on the wrong side of it. Yumi leapt for the precarious pile of boxes, touching down lightly before springing to a more stable stack against the wall. The vacated column wavered, then tipped, showering cookies and less definable foodstuffs painfully on the head of the larger feline. Ulrich took his chance to run past the beasts and scrabble up towards Yumi's perch. She grabbed his hand and hauled him up.

Left on the floor, the lions growled up at them menacingly.

"Now what?" asked Ulrich glumly. He hated heights.


	3. Chapter 3 : Finale

**Episode Six : Cats**

Soundtrack: Barenakedladies' "It's All Been Done" (Yumi. Ulrich. It's perfect.)

_Sissi's Lyoko appearance was something I spent a lot of time debating over. I have a ton of concept sketches but, unfortunately, no way to get them on the computer. Then the actual show went and copped my idea for her weapon… and suddenly _Aelita_'s using pink force fields to fight monsters… As I've said before, I wrote this before I saw Season Three. It's one of those convergent evolution things._

_Now, because my vacation starts earlier then I thought, and I don't want to leave this episode unfinished, you get two chapters today! Yup, this is a bonus chapter. And that will be all until August, when I return._

_Taidine_

Chapter Three: Finale

With a click and a hiss, the weathered metal doors of the elevator slid open. Jeremie stepped out casually into the cavernous space of cables and metal that was the computer lab. Sissi followed, arms crossed over her pink shirt, trying her very hardest to match him for indifference. It wasn't easy; although she had been here before, and, thanks to the software uploaded by Kloe, could now remember those previous visits, it was pretty crazy to think this sat under the Factory every day, passing electricity through its wires, humming gently to itself and clinking out lines of code, utterly unknown to anyone outside the small circle of Ulrich's group, Kloe, and herself.

Pretty crazy, but exhilarating.

Jeremie strode across the room and dropped into his chair. Florescent code reflected off his glasses. "Odd, Aelita, get to the scanner rooms."

Odd held the doors open with one hand. "How about Sissi? She's not half bad in a fight." Sissi looked back with suspicious, narrowed eyes, but the purple-clad boy looked as serious as he ever did (not very).

"I'd rather not," Jeremie answered, typing rapidly. Odd shrugged and stepped backwards into the elevator. The doors shut in front of him, leaving Sissi stranded in the computer lab.

The principal's daughter walked a haughty circuit of the room nose in the air, and pulled to a stop near Jeremie's desk. The computer geek flicked a switch on his earpiece and pulled up a pair of character cards: an elf girl in a hideous shade of pink, followed by a purple-clad boy with cat paws, a tail, and Odd's unmistakable haircut. Sissi knew what the other cards would look like, too – two more video game characters, a girl in a kimono with Yumi's pale, smug face and a boy who looked like Ulrich in dorky samurai armor. Not that Ulrich himself could ever look dorky, but his fashion sense for his character was less then impressive.

"Scanner, Aelita," Jeremie announced, "Scanner, Odd." There was a hum of distant machinery.

"Transfer, Odd. Transfer, Aelita." Sissi plopped down at one edge of the desk with a pout.

"Virtualization," declared Jeremie with evident satisfaction, "Mountain sector today. I'm sending in your vehicles."

If Sissi peered around the edge of the screens, she could see a familiar glowing map, marked with one green blip and one yellow. Not especially interesting, or in fact dangerous. She crossed one leg over the other and wondered what was going on back at school.

- - - -

"How long," Ulrich said, staring at the ceiling grimly. The ground was extremely far away and the stack of boxes he and Yumi were perched on trembled each time the lions below rubbed against it. From their rumbling growls, the felines knew exactly how precarious that was. "How long," Ulrich began after swallowing and taking a deep breath, "do you think it will take?"

Yumi was looking down, holding the front edge of one crate. "I don't know. Let's talk about something else."

The thing that had been bugging Ulrich for the last hour, although it now seemed trivial in comparison, immediately sprang to mind. "Fine. Why did you agree to go to the dance with-"

"Agree?" Clearly, she could already guess where that sentence was going. She cut him off derisively. "Who said anything about _agreeing_? I said William _asked_ me to go to the dance with him."

One of the felines below rammed into the stack of boxes, making it wobble worryingly. "And… what did you say?" Ulrich prompted through tight lips, hands clasped to the edge of his box, eyes still fixed on the ceiling as though his line of sight was something physical enough to support him.

"I told him to buzz off and not ask me again," Yumi mumbled rapidly.

"Oh."

From outside the door came a muffled voice, heavy with ready sarcasm. "Yeah, they went this way. Tell me, did Odd in any way imply school was _more_ safe then wherever they were going?"

Ulrich recognized that voice, and so, after a moment, did Yumi. "What's Kloe doing here?" She whispered.

There was a click; a handle turned, and the door to the storeroom cracked open. The girl doing the opening was tall, blonde, and wearing an expression of appeased curiosity. "I always wondered what was back here…"

The lions saw her. The person looking over her shoulder – Herve, the more intellectual of Sissi's companions – saw the lions. "Shut the door!" He exclaimed, a flat, nasal twang in his voice, and didn't wait for Kloe to obey, grabbing the handle himself and hauling the door shut. The felines lunged; there was a pair of dull thuds as each of them met thick metal.

Yumi leaned out over the edge of the boxes, trying to hear their conversation. Ulrich resisted the urge to pull her closer to the wall and tried to listen himself. "What was it?" asked a third voice, this one guttural and unpracticed. It belonged to Nicolas – apparently Sissi's whole gang was here, with the possible exception of Sissi herself.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," said Kloe. The shortness of breath brought on by dangerous situations narrowly escaped was audible as she spoke.

"Lions," said Herve, uninflected and matter-of-fact.

Ulrich could almost hear Kloe pulling out the pen she kept behind her ear; her reporter's instincts must have been buzzing. "The lions from the displays, unless someone busted out the dummies and brought in replacements to confuse us. I think there must have been a mix up between the museum and the zoo, because these are quite alive."

"Yes, I saw that," Herve agreed. There was a hint of a 'thank you, miss obvious' glare in his voice. "But how?"

There was a pause, then Kloe breathed a word that sounded suspiciously like, "XANA."

"Wha?" asked Nicolas' thuggish voice.

"I'll explain as we go, but we have to get out of the cafeteria," Kloe said quickly.

Yumi and Ulrich exchanged glances. The felines lurking by the door growled and resumed their pacing. "Yumi, do you have your cell phone?" Ulrich asked. At her nod, he breathed out in relief, never looking away from the ceiling. "Call Jeremie."

- - - -

In Lyoko, a single hovering rectangle of pink-and-purple plastic sped along the narrow pathways of the mountain sector. A cat boy with the same color scheme and haircut as Odd perched upon it; arms tipped with four-fingered, paw like gloves spread to either side for balance, and a striped tail fluttered behind him. Holding tight to his waist was the second passenger, a girl with pink hair and pointed ears.

The paths on which they traveled were a thick mass of arching trails, riddled with intersections and dead ends. High, sheer walls of rock enclosed them, creating a mazelike structure. Fortunately, they had a guide.

"Turn left at the next junction," instructed Jeremie's disembodied voice, for all the world like the automatic GPS-guidance system of some fancy car. "There should be a turnoff onto a downward-sloping ramp. And – ah! – two blocks, dead ahead!"

"We're not going to make it without backup, Jeremie," Odd piped, "XANA's put out quite the welcoming committee. _Laser arrow!" _That last wasn't for Jeremie. Two cubes-on-legs, each marked with the concentric-circles symbol of XANA, loomed suddenly ahead. At Odd's words, a pair of his trademark projectiles were released from one gauntlet, expertly taking the obstacles out – but not before one fired off a laser that grazed the catboy's side in a crackle of blue lightning. "How many life points have I got left?"

Jeremie grimaced at the depressing figure on the screen. "Not enough," he allowed finally. He didn't have to look up to see the cat-in-the-creamery smile spreading across Sissi's face.

There was a beep; a cell phone-shaped panel popped up suddenly on the screen, an inset of a black haired, Asian girl just above it. Jeremie allowed himself a smile of his own. "Thank goodness. Yumi?"

"Hi. " The girl's voice sounded uneasy and apologetic. "Ulrich and I have some problems. I don't think we can make it. But you might have company soon."

"Who?" Jeremie asked, scooting the cell phone window over so he could see the map, "Odd, Aelita, take the right fork."

"Kloe," Yumi responded unhappily, "Hurry it up over there."

Jeremie glanced over his glasses at Sissi and paused his frenzied typing for a moment to rub his temples. "Got it," he told his earpiece. There was a click as Yumi hung up. "Odd, Aelita, the tunnel up ahead is clear. Go through it and it's straight on to the Tower." At times like this, one had to choose the lesser of two evils. "I have to code a character for Sissi."

"Hmph. I wondered how long it would take you." He glanced over his shoulder. Sissi had replaced her smug grin with a haughty glare, but Jeremie was already regretting this.

"Weapon?"

"Mm? Unarmed, I guess," she hazarded.

"She took a few classes to impress Ulrich," Odd clarified, voice squeaky in Jeremie's earpiece. "Actually, I think she took a _lot_ of classes to impress Ulrich."

"Fine," said Jeremie tersely, pulling up a new program, "Get down to the scanner room – that's the lowest level."

Sissi tapped the elevator button. "Make the outfit pink and orange," she commanded as she stepped inside.

- - - -

Odd and Aelita glided through the dark interior of the tunnel. Purple shadows pooled in the folds of the rock and shifted on the virtual bodies of the two warriors, periodically obscuring them altogether, but only that slow change of light and shadow betrayed their movement.

"So, Aelita, you're the other computer genius. How long will Jeremie take?" Odd piped. His voice echoed strangely in the tunnels.

"I don't know," Aelita breathed, carefully shifting her weight behind him to keep the 'board balanced. "A lot of the character process is automated. Unless he decides to program a power, he's just going to be suggesting weapons and an outfit, really. It all depends on how much he leaves to the computer."

"Oh," Odd said, as if he understood. "You mean I don't have to wear this purple cat thing? I've sort of gotten attached to it-"

A spark of light appeared in front of them and rapidly widened into the mouth of the tunnel. The pair glided out onto a broad, flat circle of land. Ahead, the pale shaft of the Tower sprang towards the sky. It was nearly obscured by laser fire.

Just outside the tunnel, a single white tarantule took deadly aim with its gun arms. A pair of krabes flanked it, preventing sideways escape. "Doesn't this make you feel special?" Odd asked sarcastically.

"Odd, if you take out a krab, I'll try to dodge around," Aelita said, leaping off the edge of the overboard and deftly dodging scattered laser fire.

"My pleasure," Odd replied with a feral, tattooed grin. He took aim at the krab on the right. "Laser arrow!" It was a good shot, taking the creature on one jointed leg, but it didn't let its volley of lasers falter. Aelita dodged, wove, and darted between XANA's monsters. They didn't seem to care, focusing their fire on Odd; he loosed another arrow at the second krab, to little effect.

Aelita leaned forward, feet pounding the virtual ground. She could see something ahead – a very unwelcome something, large, luminous, and multitentacled, like a jellyfish of alien seas. She would have to go around. Focused on the scipazoa, Aelita cut right…

What she failed to realize was that the scipazoa hovered above a very narrow strip of land, bridging the island she and Odd had emerged on and the much smaller island containing the Tower. Without this small tidbit, it came as a total surprise to the elf when her feet met nothing but air, and she was suddenly falling off the edge of the world.

Odd leapt off his overboard to avoid a laser, ran two steps, and managed to leap back on. Being the sole target of three monsters with deadly aim was never fun, but past the bone white, articulated limbs of the tarantule, he had just glimpsed the great, pulsating form of the scipazoa.

- - - -

In the scanner room, a golden tube cracked open. Sissi peered dubiously into its faintly luminous interior, hands clasped behind her back, then stepped in with utmost care and turned to face the doors. "Scanner," Jeremie's voice said, making her start. The doors shut with the clang of doom. "Sissi."

- - - -

Tentacles lashed out, snagging the falling elf with a suddenness that drove the breath out of her virtual frame. She struggled futilely for a moment, but her limbs were pinned to her sides; the creature was holding her helpless.

- - - -

There was a flash of brilliant light. Sissi squinted her mascara'd eyes, frowning as if trying to block it out. A strange tingling swept across her body, followed by a strong updraft that made her hair float like some dark seaweed, nearly tearing it free of her headband. "Transfer, Sissi," said Jeremie's voice.

- - - -

Aelita's eyes were wide as the scipazoa adjusted its hold, positioning a tentacle to either side of her head. A faint, paralyzing glow pulsed through her.

On Jeremie's screen, a box appeared, obscuring one corner of his currently running program. He ignored it, or tried to, although his face grew grim. He could see, out of the corner of one eye, the translucent, monochromatic image of Aelita rotate into position, and the countdown began. With a twitch, he stabbed the enter key. "Virtualization!"

Odd dodged another pair of lasers; one singed his tail. With a shrill growl, he took aim at the krab. "Laser arrow!" It exploded into mechanical components, offering him a brief but painful glimpse of Aelita frozen in the grip of the scipazoa's tentacles, before a rain of laser fire from the tarantule closed the gap. "Great," he muttered, trying to dodge and aim at the same time, "Jeremie, about that – oh."

She came from behind XANA's lines, moving gracefully through the air. A black leotard, sprinkled with sequins, clung to her body, glinting from low neckline to short skirt. Some kind of filmy pink scarf was bound to both wrists and wrapped about her neck so it flowed behind in a pair of diaphanous loops. A faint glow, a scintillating pink corona, outlined her hands: when she touched down, one slipper-clad toe finding purchase atop the tarantule's smooth carapace, and chopped at the boldly outlined symbol of XANA decorating it with one stiffened hand, there was a flash like a lens flare and the monster collapsed, then vanished.

Sissi rose distastefully from the wreckage. "Jeremie got the colors wrong."

Capitalizing on the distraction, despite being perhaps more then a little distracted himself, Odd aimed at the remaining krab. "Laser arrow!" The monster managed to get in a single shot, collapsing Odd's board, but Odd's arrow flew true; a moment later, the krab had likewise been destroyed.

"Good job," said Jeremie. Sissi looked around for the source of the disembodied voice; Odd, being more accustomed to the phenomena, grabbed her wrist and began running. "The scipazoa is alone. Guess XANA wasn't counting on you escaping."

Sissi looked pleased for a scant moment, then began to frown again. "I said pink and orange. This is pink and black!"

"Sorry about that," Jeremie said. He sounded more trite then penitent.

Odd took careful aim at the jellyfishlike scipazoa. "Laser arrow!"

Sissi cut left. "I'll-"

Odd experienced a sudden flash of prescience. "Wait!" He shouted. The scipazoa was, of course, still on a narrow land bridge.

Perception shifted. The world slowed, as if everything was traveling through glue. Odd's arrow froze halfway to its target, carving a slow arc through the virtual atmosphere. He turned, dreamlike, to see Sissi tumbling off the edge of the path with excruciating slowness. Odd launched himself forward with one foot…

Everything was going at normal speed again. Not that it had ever stopped, but it certainly felt that way to Odd as his leap reached its zenith and he plummeted. He closed his eyes and pointed his toes, straining for speed. The arrow took the scipazoa in the center of its dome, and it released Aelita with a flailing convulsion of tentacles. One striped purple paw grabbed Sissi's wrist. The other snatched a virtual protrusion of rock. The principal's daughter looked upward, terror slowly fading. "Huh?"

"Digital sea," squeaked Odd conversationally between short, sharp breaths, jerking his hair at the misty depths below. He had a look of strain on his face; claws on one paw dug into the rocky virtual terrain, maintaining a tenuous hold. "You run out of life points, you just devirtualize. You fall down there, game over. Nothing we can do." The clinging purple claws slipped a notch. Sissi swayed dangerously, then reached up with her free hand to get a better grip on Odd's dangling wrist; there was a screeching noise as he lost another few inches, claws leaving furrows in the rock.

A pair of delicate hands, attacked to arms swathed in beige cloth, reached down, grasped Odd's arm firmly near the shoulder and, with a little escape of breath, yanked.

Sissi and Odd fell in a heap next to a winded Aelita, who gave them a quirky smile.

"Thanks," said Odd, disentangling himself from Sissi, standing casually, and rolling his shoulders. He looked very much like someone who had _not_ just flirted with death. "Now let's get to the Tower before XANA throws any more surprises at us."

Sissi, on the other hand, was quite aware of her own mortality at the moment, and it showed. Her virtual form happened to have a pair of tattoos, black spirals extending outward from the corner of each eye and looping over her temples, so her wide-eyed stare was very pathetic indeed. However, nothing is effective without an audience, and since Odd and Aelita were already racing towards the Tower, she darted after them.

- - - -

"'Scuse me?" Nicolas asked the grey haired teacher guarding the door, "Uh… Ms. Hertz?"

"Hm?" She looked down at the orange-haired boy, brows knit as she tried to remember his name. Not one of her brighter students. "Yes… um… Nicolas?"

He nodded his head. "Yeah. Uh…" Now that he had her attention, he didn't know exactly what to do with it. "I, uh, had to use the bathroom, and the door was locked."

Behind him, the cafeteria doors swung open under the deft hands of Kloe, releasing the coral-shirted reporter and her companion, a rather dismal Herve, onto the school grounds.

Shutting the door, Kloe breathed a sigh of relief, made a come-hither gesture, and darted across the lawn. Herve followed at a shambling gait, a ridiculous sight in his preppy outfit and haircut that persisted in looking like a wig.

They hit the edge of the woods, panting, and Kloe slowed. "So?" Herve demanded flatly. "You said you would explain. Explain away."

""Sure thing," Kloe answered brusquely, picking her way over a fallen log. "There's an evil supercomputer trying to take over the world, Jeremie and his gang fight it, Aelita has some weird connection to it, people can actually go into it, and any time you feel like disbelieving me remember a display of stuffed cats came alive about an hour ago." She dropped to her knees, leaving Herve stuttering at the top of her choppy blonde haircut, and began to pry open the hatch.

"Speaking of cats," Herve said, "and let's just say I believe you for now – where's the one that was out here?"

There was a growl, and a flicker of movement from the shadows of the trees behind them. Kloe hauled the cover aside in a sudden burst of strength and dropped her legs into the dark shaft thus revealed. "You just had to ask, didn't you?"

Herve glanced back, mildly frightened, then gave a forced, nasal laugh. "That's not a lynx."

Indeed, it was not. The feline escaping from the woods was a small grey tabby. Kloe pursed her lips. "Oo-kay. I didn't know anyone kept cats around here." She began climbing down the ladder.

The tabby minced out of the undergrowth, wending herself around Herve's ankles. He sneezed, pushed the animal away, and followed Kloe down the shaft.

The cat leapt down, landing on her feet near a pair of skateboards, and streaked off down the tunnel. Herve followed it with a skeptical gaze until he was forced to return his attention to shutting the hatch.

- - - -

Aelita stopped in front of the Tower, looking left and right. Nothing. With mounting confidence, she placed both hands on the smooth white exterior; it rippled like water, then parted. Plunging in with a single deep breath, she found herself in a familiar cylindrical room of deep blue shadow. The three concentric rings of XANA's symbol were set into the floor, and as she stepped over each, it lit with a single melodious note. At the center, she closed her eyes, feeling the ground drop away under her.

- - - -

Jeremie pulled up the return-to-the-past program; the yellow dot of Aelita rested firmly in the center of the red activated Tower on his map. It wasn't that he wanted to keep Sissi or Kloe or anyone else from sharing the secret of Lyoko – Ulrich and Yumi had sounded like they were in real danger. This was prudence. Mostly.

There was a hiss behind him, and he turned just in time to see the elevator doors slide open. "Huh?" He had a momentary glimpse of Kloe, coral shirt, smug expression and all, and one of Sissi's cronies, a black-haired boy with glasses and bad acne, before a streak of grey hurtled out from between their feet.

Herve sneezed, again. Kloe grabbed his wrist and pulled – "You're allergic to cats, aren't you?" She didn't know how the tabby had gotten into the elevator, but it had knocked Jeremie off his chair from sheer inertia and appeared to be trying to claw out his eyes.

"Kloe!" Jeremie shouted, grappling with a creature that, while small, was composed entirely of claw and muscle. "I need you to launch… return to the past!"

- - - -

Aelita touched down gracefully on the platform near the top of the Tower and rested one palm on the tilted blue screen of the computer.

IDENTIFICATION: AELITA

- - - -

Kloe sat down at the computer dubiously, positioning her hands over the keyboard. She was competent computerwise, insofar as she could use Microsoft Word and surf the web, but whatever was on the screen now was completely incomprehensible to her. Herve would have been a better candidate, if he hadn't been doubled up against the wall, red eyed and sneezing. "Okay, what do I do?"

- - - -

CODE: LYOKO

"Tower deactivated," said Aelita, as the numbers around her faded to black.

- - - -

"Type return!" Jeremie called. The cat pinning him stiffened, digging its claws into his cheek. "Then hit enter!"

"Oh," said Kloe, tapping a few keys with both index fingers, "is that all?" She stabbed down the enter button.

White light exploded outward.

- - - -

Yumi and Ulrich sat back to back on the boxes. The lions had been throwing themselves against the stacks without success but, with a sudden glint of intelligence, the tawny female extended a broad paw, hooked her claws into the cardboard, and pulled.

The stack gave way, boxes tumbling outward from the wall, spilling pizzas and hamburgers and untrustworthy vegetables. Ulrich grabbed Yumi's hand as they fell.

A sheet of white light rammed into them.

- - - -

The crowd of students swept on towards the lunchroom with cheerful ignorance, but five on the edge of the crowd exchanged glances with more relief then simply the end of today's classes would account for.

"Oh, excuse me!" called a shrill voice. Moving towards the pleased Lyoko group through a narrow gap in the crowd was Sissi, looking fresher and dryer then they had seen her last.

Ulrich shoved past Yumi to stand between the two girls, face grim under a square of brown hair. "Sissi, I'm not going to the dance with you," he said flatly.

She arched one dark eyebrow in his direction. "Who asked you?" She shrilled, shouldering past. "Oh, Odd. Dance coming up, and I _know _you want to come with me."

"Huh?" The purple-clad boy was momentarily nonplussed. Yes, he had been in a similar situation before and had sharply, insultingly refused. But that had been then – before every other girl in the school had stopped talking to him, before Princessofhearts._ And _– remembering her in Lyoko – _she's probably a good dancer._

He could hear the suppressed snickers of his friends. It was some effort to block them out. "I'll… think about it."

– Fin –


End file.
